Cricket was originally played with a stick that more or less looked like a hockey stick. Bowlers, at the time, typically kept the ball on the ground or at least skimmed the ground, instead of pitching the ball as they do today. As a response to the change towards pitching and bouncing the ball, in the late 18th century the straight […]
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Common foods that are naturally radioactive include potatoes, bananas, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, and kidney beans, among others. Brazil nuts are the most radioactive by far at 6600 picocuries per kg or about 1.875 BED (banana equivalent dose). The radium in Brazil nuts does not come from especially high levels of radium in the soil where the trees grow, but […]
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In 1891, Ellen Martin was the first woman to be able to vote in Lombard, Illinois. She noticed that the Lombard charter on who could vote didn’t mention gender. This charter superseded Illinois law and, thus, she was legally allowed to vote. She and 14 other women voted in the 1891 elections before the charter was promptly amended. Reference
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Ben Franklin fought hard for the Turkey to become the nation’s official bird, but he obviously lost out to the supporters of the Bald Eagle. His case for the Turkey being the national bird on the Great Seal is laid out in the following letter to his daughter Sarah Bache: “For my own part I wish the Eagle had not […]
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Negative forty degrees is the temperature where the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales correspond with one another (-40°F = -40°C). Forty is also considered a semi-perfect number owing to the fact that a subset of its divisors added together gives 40 (i.e. 1, 4, 5, 10, and 20). Reference
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Today I found out Lyudmila Pavlichenko sniped a confirmed 309 Axis soldiers, including 36 German snipers, during WWII. While most of the world shied away from putting women on the front line, the Soviet Union did not, including recruiting about 2000 women as snipers during WWII, one of which turned out to be one of the most successful snipers in […]
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Camels have three eyelids. Two of the eyelids have eye lashes which help protect their eyes from sand. The third is a very thin lid which works as a sort of “windshield wiper” to clean off their eyes. It closes/opens from side to side rather than up and down. It is also thin enough that the Camels can see through […]
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The term “Swiss Army Knife” was coined by United States soldiers after WWII. The soldiers had trouble pronouncing the original name of “Schweizer Offiziersmesser” (Swiss Officer’s Knife) and thus began calling the multi-tool a “Swiss Army Knife”. The company that makes Swiss Army Knives is Victorinox, named after the founder, Karl Elsener’s, deceased mother, Victoria. The “nox” part comes from […]
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Kyle asks: Why do doughnuts have holes? Because bakers make them that way… 😉 In truth, nobody knows for sure why people started putting holes in the fried cakes. There are some outlandish tales from a sailor, Captain Hanson Gregory, who claimed to have invented the holed doughnut in 1847 at the age of 16. There is even a plaque […]
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This Day In History: May 30, 1806 On this day in history, 1806, Andrew Jackson dueled with famed marksman Charles Dickinson, killing him, after Dickinson insulted Jackson in a variety of ways including calling Jackson’s wife of bigamist. This latter point was a sore spot for Jackson as his wife really had married him while she was still married to […]
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Country music was originally called “hillbilly music”. In the 1940s, Ernest Tubb helped re-brand this type of music “country music”. In an interview about this, Tubb stated, “Hillbilly, that’s what the press used to call it, ‘hillbilly music’. Now, I always said, ‘You can call me a hillbilly if you got a smile on your face.’ We let the record […]
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Today I found out there once was a baseball player traded for baseball bats. “Bat Man”, as he was nicknamed after the trade, was actually named John C. Odom. His life ended tragically just six months after the momentous trade. After being signed by the San Francisco Giants in 2003 out of Tallahassee Community College, Odom was assigned to play […]
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You should know how to prevent Windows Update from automatically restarting your computer. There are few more annoying default settings than Windows’ developers choosing to have the default on Windows Update be to automatically restart your computer and further not providing any obvious way to disable auto-restarts after a Windows update.. Sure, they have a “postpone” button that pops up, […]
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The first president of the United States, George Washington, upon his death bed told his attendants “I am just going. Have me decently buried and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Do you understand?” He was terrified of accidentally being buried while he was still alive. Among […]
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You should know the plural of “hero” is “heroes”, not “heros”. With it being Memorial Day and so many people posting on Facebook/Twitter/etc. about all the “heros” out there, I thought I’d do a quick post to help people avoid being murdered in their beds by Grammar Nazis, as I’ve nearly been on numerous occasions, only managing to fend them […]
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Emma asks: Why does your nose runs when you cry? Well when you’re crying, if you find your nose running and your feet smelling, perhaps you’re upside down? *crickets* In truth, your nose runs when you’re crying because the tears from your tear glands not only drain out onto your face, but there is also a passage way in the […]
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In The Phantom Menace, in scenes where Yoda was walking around, Warwick Davis played Yoda, obviously in a Yoda suit. Davis also played the Ewok, Wicket, in Return of the Jedi and of course is most famous for playing Willow (phenomenal movie) and of course Professor Flitwick and Griphook in the Harry Potter series, among many other roles. Reference
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